I don’t know about you but I often find that there’s nothing that whets the appetite for a big plate of Barclays quite like the deluge of 32 Europa League and Europa Conference League fixtures that washes over us like raw sewage every Thursday evening.
And I say that as a huge fan of fixtures such as ‘the only professional team in Liechtenstein’ versus ‘a team that’s not even professional in Luxembourg’ and ‘Manchester United’ versus ‘Cypriot minnows with a squad value of a third of the cost of Fred’.
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It’s the weekend, meaning now is the time to set your out of office by 4pm and spend the remaining hour shuffling your FPL team about in a desperate bid to overtake Margaret from HR (little do you know she’s paying someone to pick her team using an algorithm, the scumbag).
If you’d rather do something worthwhile, here are six enticing storylines to watch out for across the Premier League.
It really is my displeasure to report that Leicester City have suspended birthday announcements at the King Power Stadium for the foreseeable future. Lifelong supporter Brenda and her grandson Zak, who has a different surname but rather miraculously shares the same birthday, were refunded their twenty quid and simply told by Leicester they wouldn’t be able to have their messages displayed.
It’s never nice to see a club turn its back on the fans like this and one can only imagine the tension it’s going to create among the home support as they host Crystal Palace in Saturday’s early kick-off. After contacting a representative of the Foxes, I have at least been assured that Fitz Timetago will be granted his own personal request and allowed to propose to Greta Numanager (think she’s Danish or something) on the pitch at half-time. Love truly does conquer all.
Chelsea are very much a team on the up under new manager Graham Potter after four consecutive wins. Meanwhile, Aston Villa are as stagnant as a puddle despite their own mini-run of four unbeaten games, three of which were draws and one of which was against ten-man Leeds United. That’s the joint longest undefeated run Villa have had since Steven Gerrard was appointed. If that doesn’t sound too impressive it’s because it’s not.
Over to Villa Park on Sunday then, where Stevie G will once again be praying for some Philippe Coutinho moments of magic, the exact thing his old chum has categorically failed to produce since about 2017.
Lose this and Gerrard’s time will likely be up in B6, having achieved very little of note other than exhausting Aston’s supply of Brylcreem to keep his hair perfectly swooshed to the side and reminding most VIlla supporters of how much they miss playing with wingers. Even Frank Lampard has managed to turn Alex Iwobi into an unstoppable central midfielder. Looks like he’ll be staying as the other goes this time around.
It’s fair to say that Virgil van Dijk hasn’t been himself this season. He hasn’t quite looked the same since Aleksandar Mitrovic gave him a very deliberate, almost glacial run-around at Craven Cottage on the opening weekend of the season. Thankfully, the centre-back has had Trent Alexander-Arnold on hand to play slightly worse and therefore shoulder most of the criticism that has come Liverpool’s way.
While Joe Gomez is the perfect replacement to come in for the injured full-back, drop a clanger or two and divert even more attention away from the big Dutchman, it won’t be on Gomez to mark Erling Haaland as Liverpool host Manchester City on Sunday.
Still, they might have had half a chance if all that Twitter confusion about Haaland’s cousin had actually manifested in the real world and they were tasked with stopping Preston North End’s Brad Potts instead – drawn into this, of course, because he looks vaguely Scandinavian despite being from Hexham.
Haaland’s cousin has arrived đź‘‹#pnefc pic.twitter.com/QiPk3sJtTG
— Preston North End FC (@pnefc) October 12, 2022
It’s Brentford against Brighton on Friday night, the kind of fixture that gets all the sports analytics nerds hot under the collar as their two idols go head-to-head to determine once and for all: who will get the slightly more glowing long read about them and their club and their club’s model and their club’s recruitment model this month.
Destined to become a horribly miscast Netflix dramatisation someday, the Tony Bloom and Matthew Benham beef is at least genuinely fascinating. The way to translate it to screen? Give me a shaved-head Martin Freeman as Benham, channelling as much Steve Carrell in The Big Short as he can, and Ralph Fiennes as Bloom. There. Done. Solved. Now also let me write the screenplay, @Netflix.
Superintendent Chalmers voice: Good lord what is happening in there!?
There, in this instance, being Wolverhampton, rather than the Aurora Borealis localised entirely within Principal Skinner’s kitchen.
Bruno Lage went out playing Ruben Neves at centre-back. Julen Lopetegui turned down the job. Thomas Tuchel turned down two unnamed Premier League jobs, one of which was definitely, definitely, Wolves. And now this: the potential return of Nuno Espirito Santo. You couldn’t write it. Well, you could. I mean, I could, just as long as you gave me Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul’s Giancarlo Esposito in a fake beard.
Before Nuno is released from the shackles of a two-year contract at Al-Ittihad, which shouldn’t be too difficult as long as you give them lots and lots of money, Wolves must first take on Nottingham Forest at home, not play Neves at centre-back and actually score a goal. All easier said than done.
Since losing 9-0 to Liverpool towards the end of August – an event that should have resulted in immediate relegation to the Championship if football were a just and fair sport – Bournemouth have turned a corner under interim manager Gary O’Neil. They’re unbeaten in five and have chalked up wins against fellow relegation candidates Leicester and Forest. Look at them! They’re in eighth place! They’re above Liverpool, for christ’s sake!
It remains to be seen whether O’Neil can keep working his magic under a cloak of invisibility from both the nation’s press and media but for now, they’ll enjoy the prospect of facing a Fulham side with Schrodinger’s Mitrovic, somehow both fit and unfit, a certainty to start and also a major doubt. Scott Parker’s silly little stripey cardigan is a thing of the past, say hello to the hottest look in men’s fashion this winter: Gary O’Neil’s thermal long-sleeve under a polo.
Viva la revoluciĂłn.
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